


Pinky Swear

by Cocoplumb



Category: TharnType the Series (TV), บังเอิญรัก | Love by Chance (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Sick Character, Type is a big baby, single parent tharn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:54:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21761764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cocoplumb/pseuds/Cocoplumb
Summary: Type is dying. His nose is bunged up, his head is pounding, his stomach is doing somersaults and his throat feels like it’s on fire. And not a single one of his friends care enough to go buy him the drugs he desperately needs. Not one.ORType is sick and is forced to go to the grocery store for meds late at night. There he meets Tharn and his sister, Thanya.
Relationships: Tharn Kirigun/Type (TharnType), Tharn/Type (Love by Chance)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 718





	Pinky Swear

Type is dying. 

It’s 7:23 PM on a Thursday night and he’s absolutely positive he’s dying. His nose is bunged up, his head is pounding, his stomach is doing somersaults and his throat feels like it’s on _fire_. And not a single one of his friends care enough to go buy him the drugs he desperately needs. Not one.

Which is how he has ended up here. Searching the aisles of the grocery store closest to his college dorm for literally any drug that will make him feel better. He hates his friends, he hates this grocery store and not one single person seems to care that he’s _dying_. Life really is a cruel mistress. He wonders for a moment what his gravestone would say if he died in the cookie aisle. If people would laugh. They better fucking not. He’ll haunt them forever. Assholes. 

Type groans and shuffles his feet towards the next aisle -where the heck is an assistant when you need one to point you in the right direction?- when he feels a tug on his sweatpants. He’s had them on for about three days now. Or is it four? He can’t remember. But he probably reeks. He can’t find the energy to care somehow as he feels snot dribble down his top lip. 

“Uh?” he asks the thing attached to him. A kid, with a fringe and messy pigtails, maybe four years old if he guesses. Not that he’s good with kids ages but whatever. He wipes his nose on his sleeve. 

“Mister, you’re all snotty.” The girl tilts her head, eyes wide and full of curiosity. 

“Yeah?” he grumbles at the girl. She’s lucky he’s too tired to fully express the long list of profanities he’d like to say about his current state and her bratty interruption into his already shit day. 

“My Tharn says I should stay in bed when I’m snotty. Why aren’t you in bed, mister?” 

Ain’t that the million-dollar question. 

“Because my friends are shitheads,” he tells her honestly. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” he replies.

Should he be talking to a random kid with no parental figure insight? Probably not. Should he be swearing in front of said kid? Definitely not. But he’s feverish and his head hurts so he finds it difficult to act like a responsible adult at this moment. 

She tilts her head. “What’s a shithead?” 

Oh boy.

“U-uh…” A coughing fit cuts Type off short.

The little girl tugs on his sweatpants again. Her tiny hand right next to a spicy noodle stain. Four days old, for sure. 

“Mister, you sound ouchy.” He feels ouchy. “Don’t you have a mommy or daddy to look after you?”

Type sighs when he’s finished hacking up a lung. 

“No,” he says. They live far far away, he wants to explain. But he probably shouldn’t because what if she starts talking about fairy tales and shit he doesn’t know anything about? And then people think he’s some sort of creep trying to lure her? 

Seriously, where the fuck are her parents?

“That’s okay. I don’t either,” a sadness falls over her small features. “But I have my Tharn, he’s the best,” she beams after a moment. “He always takes care of me. You can borrow him if you want? Just until you get better.”

Are all kids this gullible...and sweet? 

Just as another coughing fit rears its ugly -and painful- head, a voice makes both he and the girl jump. Type sees a man about his age, come matching past the end of the aisle. Long limbs, dark hair, a fucking murderous look on his face. 

“Thanya!” The man shouts and the little girl shrieks. Her nails nip into Type’s leg as her fist tightens around his sweatpants. 

The man storms over, and if looks could kill and Type weren’t already dying. Fuck. 

“Thanya, what have I told you about wandering off?” the guy says, each word cutting off with a sharpness. “Do you know how worried I was? What if something would have happened to you?!” 

Type doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. He’s never been a situation like this before. Okay, that’s a lie, he’s been the kid in this situation before. He was a curious brat too. His imagination too excitable for his small legs and he used to wander all kinds of places. But as an adult bystander, he’s clueless. So he just stares and hopes he can leave soon because his head hurts and the world is starting to tilt. His friends are so going to regret mocking his illness. Mark his words, they are dead meat. 

“But-but-but, I was just here, I didn’t go far,” the little girl pouts, slowly letting go of Type’s pants and he scoots away a tiny bit. Did she rip his pocket? That little… “I’m sorry, Tharn.” She flutters her long lashes and Type feels something inside him melt. He can buy a new pair of sweatpants. 

“No dessert for a week,” the guy says, otherwise immune to her tricks. “Bed as soon as we get home.” 

“But Tharn-” 

The man -Tharn- bends down and scoops her up with ease. Strong arms lifting her to rest on his hip. Fuck, those veins. 

“Do you want it to be two weeks?” he warns with his eyebrows raised.

Shit being a parent looks like no fun at all. 

“But I just wanted to make sure the mister was okay. He’s really sick and he doesn’t have a mommy or daddy. Just like you and me.” 

After a flicker of the same sadness Type saw on the girl, it must be hereditary, the guy finally acknowledges Type’s existence when he looks from the girl to him. He pauses for a brief moment. Like his words get caught in his throat. 

“O-oh. I’m so sorry,” he says, embarrassed. “She knows not to wander off, I hope she wasn’t much trouble.”

“Don’t uh…” Type coughs into his arm. “Don’t worry about it.”

Don’t worry about it? Who is he? He’s delirious, definitely delirious.

“Well,” the man smiles, “Thank you, anyway.”

“Sure,” Type says. 

What exactly did he do again? 

The man frowns, adjusting the little girl who starts to squirm and whisper something into his ear. “Do you need help with anything? You do seem a little…” 

Feverish? Woozy? Ailing?

“I’m dying,” Type grumbles. 

The guy chuckles and shakes his head. Some of his hair falls in his eyes and he looks fucking mesmerizing. Like something out of a cologne commercial when guys walk out of the ocean and whip their wet hair back off their face and say something poetic and dumb that has no relation to the product what so ever. 

Type really _really_ needs to go back to bed.

“First time buying your own drugs?” the man guesses, a sly smirk threatening to take over his otherwise neutral expression.

“Mh,” Type nods, his bottom lip drooping more than the little girls. Is he really that pathetic?

“I’m Tharn, this is Thanya. It’s nice to meet you.” The guy, Tharn, dips his head but doesn’t offer out his hand to shake.

Type kind of understands. He wouldn’t touch himself if he didn’t have to given his current germfested state. 

“Type, and uh...nice to meet you too,” he says out of courtesy. His mother would kill him if he didn’t show the manners he was taught.

Thanya tugs on Tharn’s front pocket to get his attention.

“Tharn, what’s a shithead?”

Fuckfuckfuck.

Just as Type wishes for the ground to swallow him whole, Tharn snorts. 

“Something you’ll learn about one day. Just don’t repeat that word at school, got it?”

“Pinky swear,” the little girl smiles and holds up her little finger. The guy hooks his around her much smaller one and Type feels like putty watching the scene. 

So maybe kids aren’t so bad. Or he’s just that ill. 

“Would you like some help?”

“It’s fine,” Type tells him because it would be weird. It is weird, right?

“It’s really no trouble. In fact, you’d be doing me the favor. She’ll nag me for the rest of the week if I don’t at least point you in the right direction. Right, Thanya?”

She nods, her frown almost identical Tharn’s. 

“Come on, the medicines are this way,” Tharn tells Type, gesturing to the bottom right corner of the store. He puts down the little girl and her tiny hand slips into his without missing a beat. She seems overly cheerful at the new development. 

“Come on, mister,” she says impatiently when he doesn’t follow.

“Uh...yeah,” Type blinks, “Coming.” It doesn’t seem like he has much of a choice anyhow.

The medicines are down the last aisle of the store. It takes an excruciating amount of time for Type to get there, drastically beaten by a little girl with tiny legs. Anyone from soccer practice seeing him now would laugh. By the time the three of them are in front of the overwhelming selection of drugs, Type is breathless, dizzy and his stomach feels like it’s gearing up to betray him. He prays for his meager toast from earlier to stay down and leans with a hand out to one of the shelves to keep upright.

“Are you okay?” Tharn asks. 

“Fine.” Way to play the stoic card now. 

“Okay...let’s see,” Tharn mutters to himself, scanning the shelves with the little girl looking equally as serious. “Do you have a thermometer at home?”

Type shakes his head and immediately regrets it. The jackhammer inside his head turns up a gear, vibrating behind his eyes and pulsing in his ears. 

“I’m guessing you don’t have any painkillers or flu relief?” Tharn’s voice says, muffled somewhere in the distance. 

“Nuh,” Type answers eloquently and breaks off into a fresh bout of coughing. He winces as each one rattles his skull. 

“Not to worry,” Tharn says, half to Type, half to himself and starts picking up packets of things that look like confusing nonsense. One by one he hands them to Type. “Cold and Flu Relief, Vapour rub for your chest, cooling pads for your fever, menthol sweets because cough syrup is a waste of time and money, a thermometer…” He looks down at Thanya, “Have I missed anything?” 

“Lots and lots of tissues,” she tells him seriously. “And Mr. Bunny. He can have mine?” 

Tharn pushes her hair back from her face and smiles. “I think Type is a little old for Mr. Bunny, princess. But it’s a nice thought.”

Mr. Bunny does sound nice right about now. Fuck it’s cold. Fuck he wants his mom. 

Tharn looks back up at him. “Can you hang tight while I grab you some tissues? I’m guessing you didn’t stock up?”

“I wasn’t planning on producing my yearly rate of snot in just a day, so no,” Type scowls.

Even the little girl giggles. Does no one take him seriously anymore?

“We’ll be right back.” Tharn picks Thanya up and hurries back in the direction they came.

Type is left alone looking pathetic and soggy, with his hands full of medicine packets he hopes won’t be a complete waste of his hard-earned money. Or his father’s money to be precise. Most students in his class have a part-time job or two, but not Type. His family isn't well off by any stretch of the imagination, but his father made him a promise to fund his living expenses while he attends college. His only condition, Type must study hard, do his best, and get at least B’s across the board. Maybe meet a nice girl while he’s there too. 

He hasn’t broken it to his parents yet that he feels equally okay with the thought of meeting a man, or a woman. He doesn’t see why they wouldn’t be okay with it. His best friend back home is gay after all. He just thinks maybe he should try and understand it more himself before he lets anyone else know. 

“Here you go.”

Type startles at the voice. Tharn and the little girl are back, with a shopping cart full of food and five boxes of tissues piled at the end that say the word ‘Luxury Soft’ on them. 

“How long were you gone?” Type asks, did he slip into a coma while they shopped through the entire store for groceries?

“I abandoned the cart when _Thanya_ ,” Tharn looks down at her, still pissed, “went MIA. She insisted on getting the most expensive tissues though.”

Type does his best to live on what’s most affordable. A pang of guilt each time he hands his dad's card over at a checkout. He wonders if he can get away with just one box of tissues. He could always reuse them when the snot has dried up. 

“Thanks,” he says despite the voice in the back of his head. 

“Is there anything else you need?”

Type is about to shake his head, but remembers the blinding headache from just a few minutes ago, so he just mumbles, “No,” and focuses on keeping vertical.

“Come on, we’ll help you pack,” Tharn pushes the cart past him. He’s good at this, Type thinks to himself. He’s good at taking control, giving out no-nonsense instructions, being in charge. 

Type shuffles his feet to follow, pausing only when he feels a hand pull his sweatpants again. It’s the little girl, she’s attached herself to his other pocket this time with a determined look on her face like she’s helping him walk. Type feels something akin to endearment and doesn’t say anything as he and the two virtual strangers accompany him to the checkout with his pills and his tissues. 

This isn’t how he imagined his night going when he dragged himself from his sickbed an hour ago. He doesn’t feel like complaining though.

Tharn insists on putting Type’s things through first. It makes sense, considering the tissues are on the top and Type is starting to struggle with his arms full of medication boxes. Type doesn’t argue.

“Thanya is a mean packer, right princess?” She practically beams at the nickname and as Type’s purchases make their way through the scanner, he finds himself wondering how these two ended up as they are. 

From what he’s witnessed, Tharn seems to be her guardian. The man can’t be much older than Type, if at all, his kind eyes making him appear much more youthful than his earlier fuming scowl. Guys, their age should be at college, studying, partying, without a care or responsibility in the world. Not looking after a kid, taking her grocery shopping at almost 8 PM, and talking about no desserts and bedtimes. She said neither of them has parents, which points towards them being siblings, but doesn’t she have grandparents or an aunt and uncle to take care of her while her older brother lives as teenagers should?

Type doesn’t know why he cares or why it bothers him. Maybe because the thought of looking after a kid at his age with his lack of worldly knowledge even for one night makes him shudder. He still feels like a child himself most days. The current state of him evidence enough. 

“Excuse me? Hello, sir?” 

Type feels Thanya pull on the hem of his t-shirt. 

“What?” 

“That’s ฿1,158, please,” the assistant tells him. 

Type notices all his things are packed neatly in a bag in front of him. He pays the woman with cash so he doesn’t risk his dad calling to ask what he’s bought and why. He might be a big cry baby wuss but his parents don’t have to know he’s ill. It’s not like they can do anything but worry. He’s handed back his change and after a moment, he discreetly passes it to the girl. It’s not much, it’ll barely buy her a bag of sweets, but it feels like a kind gesture anyway. 

Thanya smiles and blows him a kiss while Tharn isn’t looking. Type feels weak at the knees. 

“Um…” Type turns to the man as he starts to pile his own groceries on the checkout. “Thanks. For this.” He lifts his bag.

“No problem. You looked like you needed a hand,” Tharn chuckles, dumping what can only be described as a mountain of chocolate bars onto the checkout. It seems like he’s not quite the disciplinarian he makes out to be. “If your temperature goes above 103F, you should call a doctor.” 

“Oh,” Type did not know that. “Okay.” 

“Come on, princess, help me out here,” Tharn waves at her to stand back next to him and she does with a pout. “Feel better soon.” 

Type nods, looking down at his bag of tissues and pills. He still feels clueless. And he’s still dying. And maybe just a small part of him wants to see them again. “Can I call you?” he blurts out. 

Tharn looks up from his cart, seeming as shocked as Type is. The only one who doesn’t is the little girl. “Sure. Of course.” He puts the last of his shopping -a punnet of strawberries- from the cart to the counter and smiles. “Do you have your phone?”

Type pulls it from his pocket and opens it to dial. Tharn reads out his number like he knows it by heart, and for a moment Type thinks he’s blowing him off because nobody calls themselves. Who the heck knows their own number without at least checking? He hits the call button and feels instant relief when Tharn’s back pocket starts to ring.

“You wouldn’t believe how many forms I’ve had to fill out for her with my contact details, I think that number is now permanently etched into my brain.” 

Type chuckles, is he that transparent? His efforts are met with his lungs trying to crawl their way up his throat. He barks and coughs, his chest constricting painfully. Being sick sucks.

“Are you okay?” Tharn questions, moving to his side to place a hand on the small of his back. The little girl is stood at the other side of him with a face as equally worried. 

Okay. Maybe being sick isn’t all bad.

“I’m fine,” his words sound as if they’re passing gravel. “I’ll see you around?”

“Absolutely,” Tharn says eagerly.

“Thanks again. Bye.” 

“Bye Mister Type.” The little girl waves him off with a yawn. Fuck she’s precious. 

“Bye,” Tharn smiles. 

Not all bad. Not at all.


End file.
